Influence may refer to:
In science and technology:
- Sphere of influence (astrodynamics), the region around a celestial body in which it is the primary gravitational influence on orbiting objects
- Sphere of influence (astronomy), a region around a black hole in which the gravity of the black hole dominates that of the host bulge
- Social influence, in social psychology, influence in interpersonal relationships
- Minority influence, when the minority (which can include the status quo) affect the behavior or beliefs of the majority
In entertainment:
- Influence (band), a rock band formed in the 1960s
- Influence (Little Caesar album), 1992 album by Little Caesar
- Influence (Sister Machine Gun album), the seventh album by industrial rock band Sister Machine Gun
Other uses:
- Undue influence, in contract law, where one person takes advantage of a position of power over another person
- Sphere of influence, in political science, an area over which a state or organization has some indirect control
- Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived U.S. government department
- Driving under the influence, the criminal act of driving while intoxicated
- Influence: Science and Practice, or Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion; two books by Robert Cialdini
Famous quotes containing the word influential:
“In the learned journal, in the influential newspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener some monied corporation, or some dangler, who hopes, in the mask and robes of his paragraph, to pass for somebody. But through every clause and part of speech of the right book I meet the eyes of the most determined men; his force and terror inundate every word: the commas and dashes are alive; so that the writing is athletic and nimble,—can go far and live long.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This is what no one warns you about, when you decide to have children. There is so much written about the cost and the changes in your way of life, but no one ever tells you that what they are going to hand you in the hospital is power, whether you want it or not.... I should have known, but somehow overlooked for a time, that parents become, effortlessly, just by showing up, the most influential totems in the lives of their children.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)
“Without hesitation, I place Freud among the heroes. He dispossessed the Jewish people of the greatest and most influential of all heroes—Moses.”
—Salvador Dali (1904–1989)